DUBLIN (ANP) - Vertegenwoordigers namens de EU en van de zogeheten E5 (Verenigd Koninkrijk, Frankrijk, Duitsland, Italië en Polen) zullen worden afgevaardigd om Europa te vertegenwoordigen in toekomstige onderhandelingsgesprekken over vrede in Oekraïne. Dat zijn EU-leiders vrijdag overeengekomen op een informele top in Dublin, meldt voorzitter van de EU-leiders António Costa op een persconferentie.
Er komt dus niet één afvaardiging die Europa vertegenwoordigt in de gesprekken. Dat is iets waar meerdere EU-landen en ook Oekraïne wel op aandringen.
Wie de EU gaat vertegenwoordigen, is nog niet duidelijk. EU-buitenlandchef Kaja Kallas pleit ervoor dat zij en Costa de aangewezen personen zijn om dat gesprek namens de EU te voeren.
Moskou
"We zullen ons als een Europees team inzetten", zei Costa. "De veiligheid van Europa begint bij de veiligheid van Oekraïne."
Bij de vorige onderhandelingen tussen Rusland, Oekraïne en de Verenigde Staten in Abu Dhabi zaten de Europese vertegenwoordigers aan de zijlijn. Het ging toen om afgevaardigden van de Europese Commissie, de Europese Raad, VK, Frankrijk, Duitsland en Italië.
De Oekraïense president Volodymyr Zelensky bevestigde donderdagavond dat Europa aanwezig zal zijn bij de volgende onderhandelingsronde. Dat deed hij na een ontmoeting met de Amerikaanse onderhandelaars Jared Kushner en Steve Witkoff in de Ierse hoofdstad. Kushner en Witkoff kwamen direct uit Moskou, waar ze met de Russische president Vladimir Poetin de aanwezigheid van de Europese afvaardiging hebben besproken.
SANTA CLARA (ANP) - Nvidia heeft topman Rene Haas van chipontwerper Arm Holdings benaderd als mogelijke nieuwe topman, meldt Financial Times. Het Amerikaanse chipconcern moet op zoek naar een nieuwe topman na het vertrek van Jensen Huang. De medeoprichter van Nvidia stapte op als hoogste baas van het bedrijf na onthullingen over meerdere affaires, waaronder een verhouding met een vermeende Chinese spion.
Haas werd eerder al genoemd als mogelijke opvolger. De Amerikaan geeft sinds 2022 leiding aan de Britse chipontwerper. Haas was in het verleden al zeven jaar werkzaam voor Nvidia en heeft een sterke relatie met Huang en een aantal bestuursleden van Nvidia, meldt FT.
Andere kanshebbers om Huang op te volgen zijn financieel directeur Colette Kress en vicepresident Ian Buck van Nvidia. Kress is sinds het vertrek van Huang interim-topvrouw van het chipconcern. Ook topvrouw van AMD, Lisa Su, en hoofd hardware bij Apple, Johnny Srouji, worden genoemd.
MEXICO-STAD (ANP/AFP) - Er is op dit moment geen migrantenkaravaan vanuit Mexico onderweg naar de Amerikaanse grens, verklaart de Mexicaanse president Claudia Sheinbaum in een persconferentie. Haar Amerikaanse ambtsgenoot Donald Trump dreigde donderdag met importheffingen als het land er niet in zou slagen de zogenaamde stroom mensen die naar het noorden reist tegen te houden.
Zeker twee groepen hebben de afgelopen dagen geprobeerd naar de Verenigde Staten te trekken. Volgens persbureau AFP ging het om een groep van ongeveer duizend deelnemers en een van ongeveer honderd personen. Deelnemers vertelden het persbureau dat ze hoopten dat het verlies van de Republikeinen bij de Amerikaanse verkiezingen zou leiden tot minder strenge grensbeperkingen.
Volgens Sheinbaum hebben lokale autoriteiten een groep mensen die vorige week aan de tocht was begonnen ervan weerhouden door te reizen.
It is important to understand just how effectively perpetrators of abuse have used lawyers as their shields. A challenge to that can’t come soon enough
There will be empty shelves in many bedrooms this weekend, where the David Walliams books once stood. For parents of a certain era, there was no escaping that particular publishing-industrial complex, and I certainly did my share of wearily reading Gangsta Granny or Mr Stink on repeat. At his peak, Walliams was the bestselling children’s author in Britain for 100 weeks straight, to say nothing of the spin-off theatre productions, Christmas specials, countless World Book Day costumes, and that family-friendly stint as a judge on Britain’s Got Talent during which we now learn he was reportedly inviting teenagers to his dressing room.
“What I try and do most of all in my books is encourage reluctant readers,” he told breakfast TV’s Lorraine Kelly in 2024, the year before publisher HarperCollins finally dropped him after allegations over his behaviour towards junior female staff. But it’s parents who would have been reluctant to bring his books anywhere near bedtime had we known earlier about the young girls claiming that Walliams exploited his fame to prey on them, and then threatened legal action if they tried to speak out.
Mohammed Alfatih rearrested over alleged plot to target Israelis in Europe while detained for attack on bailiff
A former Hamas bodyguard convicted of knife crime in the UK is wanted in Germany for allegedly plotting to murder Jewish people.
Details of the plot can now be reported after Mohammed Alfatih, also known as Mohammed Naim, was found guilty on Friday of a knife attack on a bailiff outside his home in Birmingham.
The environmental and economic dilemmas he faces are formidable but, with a bold plan, he could set an example for leaders around the world
For politicians of the centre-left especially, it’s the great dilemma of the age. How do you do what everyone can see is essential to save the planet from boiling – even as your voters demand action to get the economy growing and to make life more affordable? Plenty of activists will tell you there’s no contradiction, that tackling the climate crisis makes economic as well as ecological sense and, in the long term, you know they’re right. But you don’t live in the long term. You’re running the government right now and facing several unavoidable, binary choices.
Andy Burnham is a prime example. This week, he addressed the Cop summit in Antalya, promising “a new era of British leadership” in the struggle against global heating. It’s important to him to talk that way: his political strategy relies on shrinking the appeal of the Green party, whose electoral success earlier this year helped remove his predecessor. But talk only takes you so far. Eventually the words have to be matched by action.
Molly Callahan, a gynecological teaching assistant, helps medical students practice pap smears and breast exams
On her busiest days, Molly Callahan, has 16 speculums inserted into her vagina. She works full-time as a gynecological teaching assistant (GTA) – a layperson who helps medical students practice pap smears and breast exams before they work with actual patients.
It’s not as unpleasant as you might think. In fact, the point is to help students learn how to do it without causing discomfort. Contrary to common belief, pap smears – tests that screen for cervical cancer – don’t have to be painful.
Secretary general says climate action ‘central to every aspect’ of UN’s work, as leaders depart Cop31 and talks go on
Tackling the climate crisis is central to all of human life and must be at the forefront of global governance, the outgoing UN secretary general has said in an emotional farewell address at the Cop31 climate summit.
“You cannot build peace on a burning planet,” António Guterres said at his final climate press conference as secretary general on Friday. “You cannot eradicate poverty when climate disasters keep throwing people back into it. You cannot promise young people a better future while destroying the natural systems on which that future depends.”
This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss getting inspired and how things get prioritized.
SAM: We’re very short staffed this week (all is well; Joe is taking some much-deserved time off and Emanuel has been on paternity leave, which he’ll address in length soon) so please forgive the slightly slow week, but I still think we got some great stories out. Due to the aforementioned short staffedness, this is going to be a quick one from me.
I was in beautiful Boulder earlier this week to hang out with the indie media journalists involved in the Start.Coop accelerator program. I don’t want to butcher their stated goals so you should just read about it on their site: “The Start.coop Accelerator for Worker-Friendly Media exists to address a critical gap in the media ecosystem: the lack of accessible support, capital pathways, and proven infrastructure for building worker-owned media companies. By focusing on cooperative ownership, the program advances a more equitable and resilient media economy—one where information, ownership, decision-making, and wealth are shared more broadly.”
Het voortbestaan van Sif op de Tweede Maasvlakte is in gevaar. De makers van windmolenfunderingen op zee zijn dringend op zoek naar een overbruggingskrediet. Om kosten te besparen is de productie uitgesmeerd over een langere periode. Ook wordt minder personeel ingehuurd.
Het voortbestaan van Sif op de Tweede Maasvlakte is in gevaar. De makers van windmolenfunderingen op zee zijn dringend op zoek naar een overbruggingskrediet. Om kosten te besparen is de productie uitgesmeerd over een langere periode. Ook wordt minder personeel ingehuurd.
Een 25-jarige man uit Tilburg is veroordeeld tot een half jaar gevangenisstraf voor het aanrijden van een automonteur in Schiedam. Dat gebeurde na een ruzie over de reparatie van een vrachtwagen. De Tilburger zei dat hij niet expres op de monteur inreed. Maar daar gaat de rechtbank niet in mee.
In the second stanza of “How to Be a Poet,” Wendell Berry wrote: “There are no unsacred places; / there are only sacred places / and desecrated places.” When it comes to preserving important historical locations, such as monuments, parks, and buildings, a new interactive public art installation asks, “what happens when preservation itself is endangered?”
The Sacred Ordinary is an initiative organized by 1504, a production studio based in Birmingham that emphasizes in-depth storytelling to connect people with meaningful, human-focused services and experiences. The participatory artwork is presented in collaboration with the National Parks Conservation Association, which aims to protect U.S. national parks for future generations.
In early 2025, President Trump issued an executive order that mandated the removal of some National Park Service signage relating to slavery, the LGBTQ+ community, climate change, and more, a move that erases histories inextricable from the nation’s identity. (The current administration has also blocked millions in funding for numerous parks and disrupted services.)
In Birmingham, the Civil Rights District is formally designated a national monument, comprising neighborhoods that Black people historically called home and where Jim Crow laws authorized segregation until the 1960s. The Civil Rights Movement reached a nexus here when activists Fred Shuttlesworth, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Ralph Abernathy, among many others, organized nonviolent marches in 1963, known today as the Birmingham Campaign. Police turned their dogs on demonstrators and used fire hoses on children. A bombing at a Baptist church killed four young Black girls.
The Sacred Ordinary venerates access to things most of us take for granted: the ability to shop at any store, attend the nearest school, walk around any neighborhood, and sit at the front of the bus. The exhibition is installed around-the-clock, but by day, elements of the installation comprise vintage yet mundane objects that one typically walks by without giving a second thought.
A huge midcentury television rests on an open lawn, and a red newspaper vending box for The Birmingham News, which ceased publishing in 2012, advertises 25 cents per copy. Additional sites include a characteristically blue U.S. Postal Service mailbox and a walk-in telephone booth. Sheets of paper with tear-off tabs posted around town invite participants to learn more by texting a phone number. If you text “HERE” to the number, you’ll be directed to a starting point and an otherwise nondescript yellow fire hydrant.
In scavenger-hunt style, visitors are prompted to enter the year stamped on the unit, and if it’s between 5 and 8 p.m., the sequence of texted prompts doubles as a multimedia self-guided tour of Birmingham’s Civil Rights District like you’ve never seen it: the television screen, mailbox, phone booth, and more begin to glow once the sun has set.
“Birmingham, Alabama, is known around the world for such places—sites of civil rights history that many regard as sacred and that connect us to something larger than ourselves. But today, that memory is endangered,” 1504 says in a statement. “Aging infrastructure, the passing of a generation of foot soldiers, and federal efforts to erase chapters of American history raise an urgent question: if institutions alone cannot sustain history, what role can the public play in caring for sacred sites?”
Rather than center primarily on signage, The Sacred Ordinary focuses on objects associated with civic life in the mid-20th century, evoking collective memories and providing touchpoints for younger generations for whom boxy televisions, printed newspapers, and telephone booths feel distant from today’s experiences. Emblematic of the way news and information spread before the internet and smartphones, the objects confront visitors with not only the realities of how people organized and communicated during that time but also how those memories are preserved today. Even without didactics, objects and places carry meaning that no one can simply delete.
The tour opens with a narration by actor André Holland, who played a fundamental role in preserving a historic theater in nearby Bessemer, Alabama, and 1504 has dedicated the installation to Birmingham-based artist Joe Minter. The Sacred Ordinary continues nightly through December 13, with accompanying guided walks and other programs scheduled in the meantime. Learn more on the project’s website, and explore the studio’s work on Instagram. You might also be interested in “The Praise House,” directed by 1504’s Tyler Jones.
I like it when it rains because I can have my windows open and the intermittent white noise of car tires in puddles drowns out the continuous white noise of generators and compressors. Also the leaf blowers take a day off.
Literary Hub is trying to determine the best literary TV adaptation of all time. I have soft spots for Station Eleven, Mindhunter, Shogun, The Expanse, Normal People, and, especially, My Brilliant Friend. (Where is Fleishman Is in Trouble??)
is a sci fi animated web series where humans are the vanished elder race who messed everything up. Space mercs Shrike & Beebs encounter new jobs, old enemies and miscellaneous space catastrophes. Six episodes of pro-quality animation to date. Starts episodic with capital-P plot kicking in by episode 4.
By Joshua and Ashley Palmer. Spanish translations and a couple bonus jokes in the subtitles. Production is mostly funded via Patreon, with episode costs and breakdowns in the end credits.
Also available on Netflix, apparently.
Als het kabinet-Jetten ergens de geschiedenis mee in gaat, dan is het wel met het uitstellen van belangrijke beslissingen. Eerst was er geen akkoord over de begroting, toen was er geen akkoord over het Belastingplan, en toen was er wel een akkoord over het belastingplan maar NIET met de VVD. En nou zitten Jetten en zijn vice-premiers Van den Brink (met zijn gemiep over boos zijn en gelijk hebben) en Yesilgöz al de hele dag te overleggen. Ouderwetsch Haagsch deurstaren dus, benieuwd of er pizza of rijsttafel wordt besteld. LIVESTREAM nog altijd bij de NOS, met ieder uur de mensen in Alphen aan den Rijn die het ook niet meer weten allemaal. UPDATE 18u44 - Pim Sedee van de T. twittert: "Jetten gaat straks binnen verklaring geven"
Solo, Mozilla's LLM-powered website builder and hosting service, is shutting down. All sites and data will be deleted on November 30. Mozilla launched Solo in December 2023 as a "Mozilla Innovation Project," aimed at helping sole traders to build themselves a webpage for their services. Some 54,000 people used its LLM to build pages, and relied on Mozilla to host them – complete with custom domain names. Well, not any more. Now the Soloist.ai homepage says: "We've made the difficult decision to close Solo. We have appreciated all of your support building and growing this product, and the feedback we've received from all of you. Solo will cease operations on Nov 30, 2026." Users now have just over two weeks left to find a new home for their pages, although Mozilla says it first notified them on October 1. According to the support FAQ, users can download a ZIP containing an HTML export, contact form and newsletter submissions, and a CSV linking to their images. The images themselves must be downloaded separately. Domains purchased through Solo Domains must also be moved to Name.com, with Mozilla handling the transfer after users create an account and supply its code. So much for having the fiddly bits taken care of. It also points at a couple of other bot-based site-generating services – in case all this feels like a bit too much. We suspect that for the sort of technophobes that this was aimed at, it very probably will. Mozilla told The Register: "Experimentation is an important part of Mozilla's mission to make the internet better and give people more choice and control online. Sometimes, that means making the decision to bring a product to an end. Solo will officially shut down on November 30, 2026. We initially notified customers on October 1, providing a 60-day transition period, and have been offering support to help them download their website data and migrate their domains purchased via Solo Domains to another hosting provider." It seems that some 54,000 users were not enough to keep it going, and we can see that this would cost money to keep running. An HTML export is a start, though the FAQ doesn't explain how much work it will take to get a complete, functioning site running elsewhere. Buried in the dark recesses of the web is this vulture's own nearly 30-year-old homepage, created using a mixture of Claris Home Page (which was excellent) and Microsoft FrontPage (ever so slightly less so). We saw what a mess machine-generated web content was back then, and thanks to LLMs, we suspect it is almost infinitely worse now. Mozilla might have made a few bucks by finding a commercial partner to take on its users, and perhaps through them offer a paid site-and-domain transfer service. As we noted last year, it seems not to have negotiated anything with KaiOSTech, which maintains and sells what used to be the formerly FOSS FirefoxOS for use on low-end smartphones.
